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AssetID: 31777435

Headline: Defibrillator Drones Could Save Lives Before Ambulance Arrives

Caption: **SUPPORTING VIDEOS AVAILABLE. CONTACT HAYLEY.CHAMBERLAIN@COVER-IMAGES.COM TO RECEIVE.** With less than 10 percent of people surviving an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, the time it takes to get a defibrillator to a patient can be the difference between life and death. A new study from a team in Sweden has shown that a drone can transport an automated external defibrillator (AED) over four times more quickly than an ambulance. Swedish start-up FlyPulse have developed a complete emergency service drone delivery system, and a trial study has just been released comparing its response time to that of traditional emergency medical services (EMS). The study performed 18 flights, with a median flight distance of two miles (3.2 km) for the drone that is designed to be automatically launched from an emergency services call center. Across the test flights the time from dispatch to arrival for the drone was significantly faster than EMS. The median time it took for the drone to reach its destination was 5 minutes and 21 seconds, versus the 22 minutes for EMS. Between public education and regulatory hurdles, it may be a few years before we see drones flying around delivering AEDs to patients suffering cardiac arrest, but this study shows that drones have the potential to arrive at the site of emergencies significantly faster than traditional EMS responders.

Keywords: feature,photo feature,photo story,health,emergency,drone,tech,technology

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